Saba Kordafshari, aged 20, is one of the women warriors against compulsory hijab. She was arrested on 1 June and has been kept in prison, including 11 days in solitary confinement and many days of interrogations.

During her time in confinement, Saba has endured harsh treatments, physical threats and was put under severe pressure to make false confessions before a camera and denounce her views against compulsory hijab. She was especially pressed to denounce the White Wednesdays campaign on camera. The security service agents promised her she would be released if she “confessed.” Otherwise, they threatened to arrest her mother Raheleh Ahmadi if she did not “co-operate”.

Yasmin Aryani, a women’s rights activist has been arrested along with her mother, Monireh Arabshahi, and Mojgan Keshavarz for the crime of peacefully protesting compulsory hijab.

Yasmin, only 23, was arrested in Tehran on April 10, 2019, after security forces raided the Aryani home during the early evening hours, taking her along with her laptop.
Her mother, Monireh Arabshahi, was detained the following day after she inquired about her daughter. They are both being held in the Vozara Detention Center based on a complaint by the judiciary’s Islamic Guidance branch, according to news reports.
Yasmin’s crime: appearing in a widely shared video of women peacefully protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law in a Tehran Metro train on March 8, International Women’s Day.
In the video, both Yasmin and her mother can be seen with their hair uncovered, distributing flowers to passengers on a Tehran metro train while saying they look forward to the day that Iranian women will have a choice on whether to wear a hijab or not.

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, women have been forced to wear the hijab in public. Back then, more than 100,000 women and men took to the streets to protest against the law and opposition to it has never gone away. In 2018, 112 women were arrested in Iran for defending women’s rights, many for peacefully protesting against Iran’s mandatory hijab law.